Waking from slumber, I found myself surrounded by dimness. The room was lit only by a very faint energy glow, an automatic illumination that activated when soone in the room awoke. Outside the window, however, there was not a hint of light. The slight chill on my skin alerted to sothing; as I fumbled around, I indeed found a doll girl who had sohow jumped up beside at so unknown ti. She now wrapped herself up like a zongzi and had a terrible sleeping posture. With a strong pull of the blanket, I shook the little girl out and muttered to the window, "It’s really dark outside."
"Huh?" rcury Lamp responded in a drowsy voice.
"What do you think about this darkness in front of us?"
"...It’s the middle of the night, idiot!"
I sat up, gazing into the heavy darkness outside the window.
"There are no auroras in the sky, sothing feels off." I casually grabbed the doll girl who was rolling around stretching beside . "Let’s go out and have a look."
"No, I’m sleepy." rcury Lamp clung to my head and smacked it twice, but her protest was ineffective; the person who ended up having to ask for help after hanging on a chandelier for two hours in the middle of the night because they couldn’t sleep didn’t deserve sympathy.
Dingdang was sleeping in a small box at the bedside. While I was busy getting dressed and planning to comb rcury Lamp’s hair, the little creature also woke up. She blinked her eyes, very unaccustod to the dim surroundings at this hour, "Ah Jun, why is it so dark? Did Dingdang wake up early?"
"No, it’s already morning," I checked the standard ti in the information link and replied with certainty, "you say it too, sothing seems to be wrong. It’s pitch black outside, even the Divine Realm’s nightti auroras are unseen."
"Let there be light," Dingdang said, and the room was imdiately filled with a soft light that gradually brightened as our eyes adjusted. However, this light was clearly limited to the room. I specifically walked over to the window to check, discovering that right across the layer of glass, there was absolutely no light outside. So force more advanced than Dingdang’s divine power seed to be blocking the light, and now the outside of the Divine Realm appeared to have been overtaken by pure darkness. Out of curiosity, I took out a flashlight; the light beam from it was directly cut off at the window, the dark line of demarcation very distinct, obviously not naturally ford.
"I don’t understand."
Little Dong flapped over to the windowsill, hopping around, "Outside, there’s a higher-order divine being using a vast range of Dark Power, ordinary lighting is just being nullified."
Though I didn’t think anything amiss could happen in the Divine Realm, I was still intrigued by the strange phenonon in front of . This could be another extraordinary natural occurrence in the Divine Realm, but even Dingdang seed perplexed, making this possibility sowhat doubtful. Therefore, I felt it was better to hurry and see if others were awake as well.
My room was on the second floor of the Obsidian Palace’s main hall, not far from the front hall where people gathered on normal days. However, during this brief walk, rcury Lamp, sleepy-eyed, and I encountered many Divine Servants in the corridor, further confirming my premonition: The ti should be morning, and there might have been an incident.
The Divine Servants we t in the corridor didn’t quite understand what had happened, but after asking a few of them, I learned they were just busy preparing als and daily work, which relieved slightly; it seed that the day’s only anomaly was this pitch-black daylight, rather than so crisis.
Indeed, this is the Divine Realm; if crises could happen here, every other world might as well be on the brink of annihilation.
Because it was dark outside, eternal lights lit everywhere in the Obsidian Temple. Yes, that kind of thing where when God said let there be light, there was light; even the tea servers here knew that phrase. These absolute natural lights made the corridor to the front hall brightly lit; if not for the occasional view of pitch-black darkness outside passing windows, one wouldn’t even notice anything unusual. And in the similarly brightly lit palace front hall, I finally saw Sandora and Big Sister sitting there, sipping morning tea as usual.
And of course, Bingdis was there too, usually doing morning aerobics in the front hall around this ti.
"Hey, Chen, didn’t think you could wake up on ti without daylight," Bingdis waved at us and then shrugged at Sandora who was drinking tea, "Saw that tea cup just now, rember to put it on my account!"
"What’s going on outside?"
Seeing Sandora and Bingdis still mildly bickering and interacting as usual, I knew nothing major had happened, yet I was still puzzling over the abnormal darkness outside.
"Ah, this is indeed a rare situation," Bingdis approached the huge floor-to-ceiling window and forcefully pushed open the overly large crystal windows for the palace; the heavy darkness outside seed like it would seep through the opened window, dimming the hall slightly, "It’s the power of the Dark Goddess. One of the four leaders personally took action—looks like the Father God is really taking this seriously—lucky you didn’t leave yesterday, or we’d have to call you back today."
Since our tasks here were complete, I and others had planned to leave yesterday afternoon, but Bingdis’s insistence, especially since Qianqian wasn’t done playing, made decide to stay an extra day. By Bingdis’s words, could the current darkness still be related to us?
"Brother, brother, it’s so dark outside." Visca ca running into the front hall at that mont, with Pandora, inscrutable as ever, following behind her along with Bubbles and Little Baobao—one chattering away in gibberish, expressing her views on the darkness to the air, the other lost in her thoughts, I dared not imagine the number of alts she was currently using to blow up human forums online.
"It’s indeed a family; even the waking hours are synchronized," Bingdis waved everyone to sit down in the hall, turning to Visca, "Don’t worry about the darkness; the Divine Realm doesn’t have power outages—good thing Visca also ca, this matter relates a bit to you. Gentlen, let announce so good news: the initial batch of the Divine Race Vanguard dispatched returned last night, and they’ve brought back sothing very important: sothing related to the Xyrin Legacy."
Bingdis’s statent indeed captured everyone’s attention, even Sandora and Big Sister put down their tea cups; evidently, although they had arrived in the living room early, Bingis had kept the suspense and never revealed this to them in advance.
"That Star Ring Fragnt, have you almost finished collecting them?"
Bingdisi didn’t directly say it but suddenly brought up another matter.
Visca had always been most concerned about this issue, and imdiately raised her hand, chattering in response, "I know, I know. Including the ones excavated by various world Expeditionary Armies, found in the Macro World, and those we discovered during several incidents, we have now recovered one hundred and twenty-three fragnts. They’re all remnants of the Inner Ring and essentially make up about eighty percent of the Inner Ring."
"Did you find the rest of the fragnts?!"
I suddenly understood sothing and looked at Bingdisi in surprise.
"Ah, here’s the good news followed by the not-so-good news: we indeed found a fragnt, super massive," Bingdisi exaggerated by gesturing with her hands, drawing a large arc in the air, "a World Managent God noticed a Star Ring Fragnt entering their world and reported it. Just so happens that the returning Vanguard recovered it. That thing even had combat capabilities; the Vanguard almost got seriously hurt."
"Hmm, the final ring fragnts were indeed the most heavily ard parts; I didn’t expect them to still be operational." Visca scratched her head, a bit embarrassed, while I twitched the corner of my mouth slightly: just as Bingdisi said, this was actually not very good news.
Yes, finding new Imperial Heritage is certainly exciting, but Star Ring Fragnts are an exception. Many facts have shown that the Star Ring Fragnts were likely caused by Fallen Apostles. They destroyed Visca’s out-of-control Star Ring, and using Abyss Power, they severely contaminated and transford it into highly dangerous Void Floating Mines. So far, nearly a hundred worlds have been attacked by these mines, with about a dozen worlds even being destroyed—when the Expeditionary Army arrived, these worlds had only bits of celestial debris left from stellar explosions. Current intelligence shows that these Void Floating Mines don’t have a specific attack target; the Fallen Apostles likely created them just to destroy worlds, not as formal weapons. After finishing the transformations, the Fallen left them unattended, but these fragnts still appeared in a fairly regular pattern: all in unclaid planes far from the Divine Race’s ruling areas.
Every one of the hundreds of Star Ring Fragnts discovered was like this. Those worlds weren’t under Divine Race’s rule and weren’t even on the Empire’s map before being discovered by the Expeditionary Army; they were idle worlds. According to occasional remarks by Bellavilla, the Fallen Apostles have a severe destructive tendency due to the influence of Abyss Power. They relied on enjoying the destruction of worlds to vent this impulse, yet they did not want to attract the Divine Race’s attention with too much noise. So unless they were engaging in that unclear "Great Endeavor," Fallen Apostles only targeted unloved idle worlds—I’ve always believed there would be no exceptions.
But the Divine Race Vanguard found fragnt attacks within Divine Race-controlled territory.
"Fallen Apostles shouldn’t be going mad, right?" Big Sister frowned, "Their openly attacking Divine Race territories could easily expose them. Do they have so kind of reliance?"
"Who knows?" Bingdisi shrugged her shoulders, "The power of Fallen Apostles is definitely not sufficient to start a full-scale war with the Divine Race, so it makes one wonder why this Star Ring Fragnt suddenly appeared in Divine Race’s territory. Now, the Dark Goddess is gradually controlling the Abyss Energy on that giant fragnt, attempting to trace back to the origin of the fragnt. Maybe this could lead to discovering a nest—whatever the Fallen are planning, it’s impossible to guess."
This is really troubleso news. I thought we could have a quiet period, but the Fallen Apostles have started to stir again, and this ti, they’re directly provoking us in Divine Race’s territories. Their actions are always so incomprehensible, and by the ti you finally understand them, they’ve already caused you monuntal trouble.
The darkness outside is caused by the power of the Dark Goddess. It didn’t envelop the entire Divine Realm as I initially imagined but only pervaded a small area near the garden. It just so happened that the Obsidian Temple materialized in this area, and we were all enveloped within it, unlikely to get out before the Supre Dark Goddess withdraws her power. I don’t fully understand the form of divine power, but according to Bingdisi, the power of the Dark Goddess will change the Abyss Energy on the fragnts, causing them to "solidify", thereby allowing safe and convenient research. This can be considered a more sophisticated thod of Abyss inertial treatnt than Xyrin’s Ghost Energy suppression force field, and also much more efficient than our thod that requires several days of process to carry out contact research on a fragnt—just two hours later, the darkness dissipated.
Sandora and I, leading the Pandora Sisters, once again visited the Brilliant Divine Court, but this ti we went directly to the palace of the Supre Dark Goddess: Eternal Night Palace, a building that was unassuming yet deeply solemn and dark.
Father God was already waiting for us in the palace, along with several familiar High Order Gods, including the Supre Life Goddess Jiajia and the Supre Light God Sovare, plus the host of the palace, Soraphiel, amounting to three of the Divine Race’s leaders coming at once—however, the powerful Dragon God did not appear this ti. Based on the subtle smile on Father God’s face when I ntioned that na, I believe the Dragon God had sacrificed himself for the construction of a harmonious society in the Divine Realm, counting ants in a cell.
"Bingdisi should have already inford you of the situation," Father God led the way in front, taking us deep into the Eternal Night Palace, "It’s truly unexpected, the Fallen being so careless... yes, careless."
"Are you saying, this was an accident?"
Sandora asked with the perfectly official phraseology, as the event took a serious turn when the Star Ring Fragnt appeared over the Divine Race’s territory: not that it affected the trust relationship between the New Empire and the Divine Race, but it ant that the current situation was essentially akin to a joint war preparation phase.
"My intuition tells that the Fallen are probably in disarray right now," Father God said with a gentle smile, as indifferent as usual, as if the severe and dangerous provocation by the Fallen Apostle were but a passing cloud to him, "They would not rashly wage direct war against the gods, as their ’Great Cause’ is clearly not yet accomplished. The appearance of this Star Ring Fragnt is quite peculiar; I believe it was not released by the Fallen—and I even think its presence in a world managed by our Divine Race is not ant as a weapon. However, the detailed situation requires your personal examination to understand and might answer so of our doubts, since we are still sowhat confounded by your technology."
During our conversation, we had already arrived in a grand hall in the lower levels of the Eternal Night Palace, a very spacious hall with a floor as smooth and reflective as obsidian, surrounded by empty indoor space without any furnishings, not even a single pillar. Bingdisi, who ca along, whispered to us that this place was called the Mirror Hall and was the entrance to another space.
"That fragnt is quite large, and its Abyss reaction is nearly as strong as the Abyss Gate; Feier could only place it in another space for processing," Father God explained, gesturing in the air. Imdiately, the obsidian floor beneath everyone’s feet began to ripple; the original transport portal to the Other Space was actually the ground here, "Purifying the Abyss Power from it wasn’t difficult, but making it into a safe specin took so ti. Hopefully, the few hours of darkness didn’t affect you."
The special space managed by the Dark Goddess for handling dangerous items was a location resembling a void area in the Shadow Space, where there was no gravity or direction but had the odd anti-physical property of easy visibility without any light. The enormous fragnt of the Star Ring silently floated in this boundless space, akin to a dry branch.
This was not my first encounter with a Star Ring Fragnt, but this one was larger and seed more complete than any I had seen before. Its super alloy shell was torn at both ends due to an explosion, creating a jagged opening. However, the rest of it showed little damage, and we could clearly see its weapon slots and the partially closed escape pods. The massive machinery, now dim and devoid of its forr glory due to losing its last energy during battle with the Divine Race Vanguard, floated calmly in mid-air, which evoked a kind of desolate feeling that made want to compose a poem—although I held back.
"As it was on the verge of bursting into the Abyss Gate, we took the liberty of processing it, yet did not alter its structure," Father God led everyone closer to the floating Star Ring Fragnt, until it lood before us like an insurmountable mountain. We landed on what appeared to be a docking platform in the middle arc, discovering that the tal beneath our feet still bore black two-dinsional patterns, yet no nauseating sensation of twisted Abyss Power could be felt.
Compared to the Empire’s suppressing forcefield, the Supre Dark Goddess’s power was indeed much more sophisticated; I believe Taville would be very excited about this new ’toy’.
Visca quietly looked around, her lips pursed in silence until a flash of red light passed before her eyes, indicating she might have discovered sothing. She rushed over to an open armor mounting plate a few hundred ters away, kicked the rusty armor away with one foot, then transford her finger into a probe that sparked with dark sparks, stabbing it into the exposed chanics beneath the armor.
Dark red energy flowed instantly from where the probe was inserted, rapidly sweeping across the tal armorplate under everyone’s feet. A deep buzzing sound and a slow echo from an unknown source suddenly filled the air, akin to a dry corpse hastily returning to life. The Star Ring Fragnt unexpectedly began to function again, its weapon cover plates and escape pods finally fully closed due to the regained energy. Visca signaled us an "all-clear" gesture, and minutes later, a severely distorted synthetic voice emanated from a nearby broadcast tower: "... Detecting highest command set ... Existing mission concluded, weapon system locked ... System self-check error, servo devices and starship signals not found, warning, system state abnormal, please consult higher-level intelligence system for tactical judgnt ... Dis... Dis..."
The last few characters faded out like an old tape recorder running low on power. Visca also ended the operation of the Star Ring Fragnt, which had briefly flickered back to life, her face beaming with excitent as she ran back: "Brother, brother! The auxiliary system of this fragnt is indeed intact! Fix it, Taville can fix it! We can even use the backup data here to reconstruct the Inner Ring!" (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote on Qidian. Your support is my greatest motivation.)
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